Drug abuse on the rise in Helmand

Halima's drug addiction started with a toothache. "Some of my relatives told me to put a piece of opium in my mouth to relieve the pain. After a while I soon became addicted to this evil,” the 30-year-old mother-of-four said as she sat in a long queue of women waiting for treatment at a drug addiction clinic in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand. Helmand, the largest opium-producing province in a country that produces nearly 90 percent of the world’s illicit opium, has seen a steady increase in addiction. “It [opium] made me so weak and sluggish,” mother-of-six Jamila, 35, said. “Even my children have become fed up with me so I decided to end this misery and seek treatment at this clinic. The doctors here are so kind and helpful and their medicine has changed my whole perspective on life." The 20-bed clinic, founded in June by the Welfare Association for Development of Afghanistan (WADAN), an NGO in Lashkar Gah, is struggling to cope with the demand. And with beds reserved for male addicts, the centre has no choice but to treat the growing number of female addicts in their homes. “We treat patients here for one month and after that we provide them with vocational training such as tailoring and carpentry to enable them to support their families,” Dr Raoudatullah Zia, provincial head of the WADAN clinic, told IRIN. Lying in his bed at the clinic, Hazrat Mohammad, 23, an opium addict for 10 years, blamed unemployment for his addiction. “I was jobless for a long time and the life was so boring. Neither my family nor myself know how I will ever be able to quit,” Mohammad said. There are close to a million drug addicts in Afghanistan, according to a joint 2005 survey by the United Nations (UN) and the Afghan Ministries of Counter-Narcotics and Public Health. They estimated 520,000 people were using hashish, 150,000 opium and 50,000 heroin. In Helmand there are more than 70,000 drug abusers, many who take opium regularly, according to local officials.

Despite government efforts, poppy cultivation in Helmand has flourished

“The real figure might be much higher as the number of drug abusers is increasing day by day due to growing insecurity, unemployment and widespread opium production in the province,” Zakaria Hakimi, head of the surveillance and inspection section in Helmand’s counter-narcotics department, said. Counter-narcotics officials in the capital Kabul also said that the number of drug addicts was increasing but said they did not have the resources to deal with the situation. “Where there is more poppy cultivation there will definitely be more opium addicts,” Zalmay Afzali, a spokesman for the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, said. Afghanistan, scarred by nearly three decades of civil war and internal strife, has limited facilities for the treatment of drug abusers. There are only three drug addict rehabilitation centres in the country’s 34 provinces. Afzali said they were in Kabul, Badakhshan and Herat but more were planned. The ministry had launched numerous campaigns to highlight the problem. “We have already delivered our messages on the dangers of drug use to people through 34 radio stations across the country,” Afzali said. The international community has provided millions of dollars for development but Afghanistan’s economy still relies heavily on the trade in illicit drugs. The UN and the government estimate the total export value of Afghanistan's opium in 2005 was US $2.7 billion - equivalent to 52 percent of the country's official gross domestic product. “Opium production in Afghanistan is a global problem and to tackle this long-term international commitment and assistance is needed,” Afzali said.